


memories remade

by elusetta



Category: Kingdoms of Amalur
Genre: F/F, First Kiss, Incoherent, this is INCOHERENT im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:48:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22851997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elusetta/pseuds/elusetta
Summary: Some connections are more than fate.
Relationships: Fateless One/Alyn Shir, Female Fateless One/Alyn Shir
Comments: 2
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

Ash knows, in some dark and hidden-away place, the first time she sees Alyn Shir; a lost spark, the vestiges of a forgotten hunger, lingers like dust on the points of her ears and behind the steel gray of her eyes. It's not quite there, and the woman's sharp words stop her from asking. Still it drives her forward, watching with strange new eyes for every ghost of that woman.

Agarth gets tired of hearing her ask. "Where did she come from; who is she? Where has she gone?" He waves her off with a dismissive hand, something about fate and the lack of a destiny. He knows no more than Ash does. Instead, he speaks of false gods and the Crystal War and tells her to fight for the sake of them all.

Ash is a huntress. She pushes forth after Gadflow, her prey, hardly stopping to eat, rest, or heal until she has driven him back against the wall, her bow trained on his form. But it is not the thrill of the hunt that spurs her into this one-woman siege. It is Alyn. She only appears when Ash hunts Gadflow, and so Gadflow becomes the most addictive quarry that Ash has ever stalked.

Fast and strong, she walks a path outside of fate. She dances on Adessan scaffolding with assassins, her blades sure and sharper than theirs; she pierces a path through Tuatha Deohn while they stand in her way at Mel Senshir, withstanding the might of an army. She shatters chantries and glares into Gadflow's taunting eyes, and it is all for one more taste of the presence of Alyn Shir. The world is not prepared for the fire of a reborn woman, and it shows. Ash forces her way forward like a trebuchet. It is twenty-seven days before she is in Alabastra. The twenty-eighth sees her at the end, fingers calloused from the bowstring and body half-destroyed from a lack of rest. She does not feel it.

"I have better things to do than love," says Alyn Shir at the gates of what Ash knows should be her end. "And so do you."

Amethyn awaits. It is fire and apocalypse beyond that threshold, the heat already overwhelming to a daughter of the sea and sure only to increase. "Then allow me this," Ash responds.

She is not expecting anything when she surges forward, weaving her fingers into Alyn's black hair- sooty from the falling debris- and pulling her into a desperate kiss, a first and last that is nowhere near enough. Yet despite her lack of expectations, it is still a surprise when Alyn reciprocates with twice as much passion, pulling Ash closer with confident hands on her waist. What is only a few precious instants stretches into the feeling of hours.

If she waits even a moment before plunging into the cave where she is sure that she will die a second time, Ash will not be able to go. So she does not wait. She breaks out of the kiss, pushes Alyn back and pursues her last quarry. One more hunt. A dragon to slay, for the sake of all the world. 

Tirnoch awaits. Ash is ready to die, but she wants to live, the fire of Alyn's lips burning a desire to survive over all else, the words still unsaid between them singing a sweet melody of potential that cannot be left to wither.

She emerges from the fire, scarred and shattered, what feels like three lifetimes later; and when she wakes, Alyn gone once more, the hunt begins again.


	2. the return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> alyn shir returns; an arrangement is made

Now that the quest is ended, Ash spends more time in shops, in taverns, in the sunny spots of the woods. With every new flower she smells, more comes back to her.

She realizes, a few days after the ordeal at Tirnoch’s prison, that she misses the touch of a woman. Many pretty maids would take the Hero of Mel Senshir, the one who ended the Crystal War, to bed, and they offer to; Ash takes them up on it, but only when they have gray eyes or black hair or Dokkalfar ears, and it’s not until she sees the genuine article- Alyn Shir, casually posed against a wall- that she realizes why.

The sound of the tavern, the heavy atmosphere of bread and beer and sweat, masks her presence when she slips up to the woman. “Why are you here?” she asks, desire both physical and emotional running in a slender vein through her words. 

Alyn does not look at her. “My work takes me to many places, Fateless One. This is simply one of them.”

A small hope flickers out in Ash’s chest. “You have nothing to say to me?” She lets her mind wander forward, to where she wishes this encounter would go. It has been so long since she’s seen Alyn, weeks, months without her. She wants to make up for that lost time. She wants Alyn to break under her gaze, push her against this disgusting tavern wall, kiss her and then break away with a whispered confession, dark eyes burning hot and damp under the orange candlelight of the-

“Nothing,” Alyn responds, and pushes herself off of the wall, disappearing into the steps.

Ash is proud of her hunter’s responses, but sometimes they are too instinctual. Her quickness is deep-rooted, so much a part of her that she can’t even begin to stop herself when she races in a flash after the woman, so swift and nimble that the patrons of the tavern don’t even realize she’s passed them. It’s a move she’s used in battle. She hates that she uses it now, pursuing someone she loves.

Her mind catches on the word, but it doesn’t stop her. She knows. She’s always known, ever since she was reborn, hasn’t she?

“ _ Alyn, _ ” she says almost desperately when she gains sight of her again. “Look at me.  _ Please.  _ I-”

Alyn turns back, looking at her, and Ash’s words tangle and die in her mouth at the deep, dark sorrow in her eyes. It’s a long moment before she can straighten herself out enough to speak again. “Alyn Shir, you cannot simply turn your back on me.”

“Why not?” Alyn snipes back.

Ash presses forward until they’re practically nose to nose, locked in a battle of eyes against the wall. “I have a few reasons. One, that we know each other. Two, that we are friends. Three, that you are in love with me, and four, that I have been waiting entirely too long for you to come back.”

Alyn makes a scoffing noise, but her heart isn’t in the sound, and it tapers off into a sigh. She averts her eyes. “I was not lying to you about the work taking me to this area. But… it did not take me to this tavern. I came here of my own will.”

“Because you love me,” Ash supplies. Her hands slip behind Alyn, interlacing behind her back and pulling her closer.

“You are full of yourself,” Alyn responds, though her fingers walk upwards, tracing smooth patterns into Ash’s leather armor. “Do you want me to say it?”

“Rather desperately, yes,” Ash admits readily. What she wouldn’t give to hear Alyn whisper it into her ear until the stars come up. Even that first confession had not been a true confession, not the three matched words that have been waiting unsaid for however long they have truly known one another. “I have thought about what you said, Alyn, about you trusting me with your world, but I do not want to have to say it myself.”

Alyn gives her a hard look, then grasps her firmly by the shoulders and pulls her forward. “You were unkind in your past life.”

She is a hair's breadth away. Ash holds back the raging need to kiss her now. “I know. You have told me all of this before.”

“Not all of it,” Alyn corrects her, eyes flickering down to Ash’s lips. “I did not tell you… I thought, perhaps, it would be too much for you to take in at once. I left out what we were to one another.” When Ash gives no response, she reluctantly continues. “We… enjoyed each other’s company, from time to time.”

Ash raises one eyebrow. Alyn lets out a sharp sigh. “Often. Every day. It was not love, or I did not think it was. I can see now what you are. What you could have been, and what you were, before you were reborn. You were  _ broken,  _ Ash. Completely shattered. All that I see in you now, everything I- yes, everything I love,” she says sharply when met with another playful look. “Every good thing about you was twisted. Your mercy was confined to giving your victims quick deaths. Your desire to help never exceeded a coin given to a beggar in secret. I loved you because of those little moments where you were what you are now.”

“Is this your way of saying it?” Ash prods. “I want the words, Alyn Shir. All three.”

Alyn lets out what sounds almost like a growl and pushes off the wall, sending both herself and Ash onto the floor as she kisses her, practically biting Ash’s lower lip. The clatter of their fall quiets the tavern, and Ash hears, through a haze of delight, one of the tavern-goers let out a long whistle that treads the line between worry and awe.

They break apart, and Ash pulls herself up, kissing Alyn's neck. "That will do, I suppose," she murmurs into her ear. "Come with me. Hugues can fake your death. We can live on a farm in Dalentarth, get married, run a shop… enjoy each other's company," she adds with amusement. It's in jest, but the idea stirs warmth into her chest. Alyn is not simply beautiful, intelligent, and utterly magnetic; she is  _ right  _ in ways that very few things are. Kissing Alyn, simply being near her, is a satisfaction that rivals anything Ash has felt. She fits into her like the bow fits over her shoulder.

“You know I cannot stay,” Alyn responds. The sorrow Ash saw in her eyes peers out of her voice, shy and hesitant but as deep as the sea. “But if such a thing were written in the tapestry of fate, I would accept it.”

“Does your mysterious organization accept recruits? I happen to be good with a bow, you know.” It’s thoughtless. Ash wouldn’t give up the life she has now for the life she did then. If Alyn is telling the truth, which she is sure she is, then she should never return to the place that broke her. “Wander with me,” she adds as a more measured afterthought.

“That is not my life,” Alyn says simply. “In a happier time, perhaps it may be.”

“Then we will meet in taverns for a while,” Ash answers, pulling herself off of the floor and dusting off her leggings. “If that is how we will live, then so be it.” Her voice hardens. “But do not leave me again, Alyn Shir. I think that I need you more than you understand.”

“I have a room here,” Alyn says softly. What little attention they had drawn has dissipated; they are now perfectly anonymous, exactly the way both of them like to be. “Perhaps we should take advantage.”

Ash smiles. “Perhaps we should.”

(That night is a long one, and by the end of it, Ash remembers things she did not know she had forgotten.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was not supposed to be two chapters... and it's still incoherent. please forgive me, i am only a simple lesbian whose head is full of rocks and boobies.


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